


Paths

by papergardener



Category: Futurama
Genre: Angst, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I had to write this because I wanted to read it, Leela’s Homeworld, Parents, THIS EPISODE, Trauma, What-If, long talks in the night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24099415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papergardener/pseuds/papergardener
Summary: Other nights? They might fall like this: quiet and dark, when one could speak of things they couldn’t say in daylight. A time for murmured secrets and soft-shelled vulnerability.“I saw my parents earlier, actually,” Fry said, frowning and kicking a soda can. It clattered a few feet ahead, and he kicked it again. “Dumb alien drugs.”Whichever way the night fell, it seemed as arbitrary as the toss of a coin.~~In which Leela imagines she killed her parents.Based on the episode 'Leela's Homeworld.'
Relationships: Philip J. Fry/Turanga Leela
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36





	Paths

**Author's Note:**

> I'm frankly shocked I actually wrote this and FINISHED it. I found that ending clip of 'Leela's Homeworld' and it still had such a powerful impact on me. Went searching Ao3 to see if anyone had done anything on it and found nothing (except for a lot of Fry/Bender stuff, which I shouldn't be surprised by, and yet I was).  
> This was nice break from my other WIPs, and these characters and world are so unique and fun to write.  
> 

She remembered the sharp recoil of the gun as it fired, could still smell the staticky ozone, and absently flexed her hand against the ship’s wheel.

Apparently they had seen visions, or something like that. All because of some weird alien drug, because of course it was some weird alien drug. When Bender had swindled some sweet-tasting gummies, they hadn’t realized it had been a hallucinogen until Fry was practically in a coma. Nor did they realize that Bender had stolen it from a powerful space cartel who had then captured their ship. They had escaped all that with only minor cuts and some slashed wiring that spat out sparks from time to time, but they’d deal with it later.

That didn’t concern Leela as much as what she’d seen. The alien—in between yelling at them and threatening them with a flesh-eating slime (trademark pending)—had said something about the drug’s effects, how it took a moment from their past and… something or other. Her translation wasn’t the best, but she got the jist of it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t real, and that’s what mattered. Leela didn’t need to know all the details, she just needed to know how to fly the ship.

Which she was doing.

Well enough.

“I think you’ve still got an asteroid lodged under the wing-thingie,” Fry said, his face pressed against the glass on the far side.

Leela jerked the wheel sharply right, throwing the ship sideways, rocking it back and forth before she felt something shift, the wheel shuddering under her hands. She leveled out again to the sound of creaking and loud groans from everyone not belted in—everyone being Fry and Bender, which was plenty enough.

“Better?”

“Uhh…” Fry drunkenly stumbled over and smushed his face against the glass again. “Yep. All clear!”

“Good.” Leela didn’t look over as Fry slumped into the copilot’s seat beside her. “I just want to get back and pretend this never happened.” She paused. “Except on the incident report.”

“Yeah, I feel ya,” Fry said, pinching his eyes in a way that couldn’t be good for his optical nerves. “Man, I’ve got such a headache from that stupid thing. That was worse than the time I ate a tray of pot brownies in high school.”

Leela gave him a quick glance over. Fry certainly looked tired, but overall fine. Except for some scratches, that is, but he deserved at least half of them. It wasn’t surprising he had been affected more: Fry had been under the drug’s influence for almost an hour, while she had—thankfully—only seemed to last a few minutes before fighting it off. Maybe it was her own horror that snapped her out of it, when she realized she had murdered her parents in cold blood.

“So what did you meatbags see?” Bender said, stomping over and throwing himself into a chair, not pausing as he pulled out a beer bottle from his chest cavity.

Fry pressed harder between his eyes before letting go, his hand dropping off the edge of the seat. “Ya know… stuff,” he said, frowning at the dark expanse before them, darkness interwoven with a billion stars and planets. “Just a bunch of dumb, boring stuff.”

“Same,” Leela said. Her eye itched as if she’d been crying, which she hadn’t been. It had been an illusion, that was all.

Except it had _felt_ real. A tucked-away part of her was desperate to get back and check that her mom and dad were fine. But she didn’t do more than push the old ship a little harder than usual, keeping on a steady course for home. Even so, it was several hours before they approached the familiar blue marble, with the sun at their backs and late at night according to the standardized earth clock on the ship. Leela wasn’t alone on deck as they rounded the curvature of the earth; Fry was with her, and together they watched the sun set in a blaze of orange light casting long, long shadows against the clouds. 

Soon the ship settled into it’s docking port with the usual hiss and groan, before falling quiet except for the hum of the engines and soft ticking of the navigational instruments. They didn’t talk much as they plodded out the gangway with yawns and long overhead stretches, already well past midnight. Maybe in the morning she would go check on her parents—she was overdue for a visit, anyway.

They were fine. Of course they were.

Her fingers twitched as she remembered the warmth of the gun in her hand.

She didn’t bother going to her own apartment, but settled into one of the spare rooms of Planet Express for just such a purpose, with little more than a bed and a hamper in the corner for anything radioactive. For hours, perhaps, she lay sprawled on top of the grubby sheets. She stared at the dark part of the ceiling, or the bar of light from the street, or the gray pulsing inside of her eyelid. Sleep wouldn’t come. Her mind wouldn’t let up that damn vision, like an awful commercial jingle that wouldn’t shut up. It so easily could have happened—that was the worst part. The difference was only a fraction of time. If she had fired five second earlier, a couple seconds earlier… if Fry hadn’t crashed through the ceiling and distracted her…

She could still picture it, standing in that dark, foul room in the sewers, both hands holding her gun steady as it clicked, clicked, clicked, charging. Her mutant parents, hooded and bowed, standing before her, waiting for their execution at the hands of their own daughter.

_I’ll kill you!_

She had meant it.

_That… would be best_.

They had meant that, too.

Again, the gun fired. The bodies crumbled with hardly a sound, just a heavy muffled thud against the hard floor.

This time, there was blood.

Leela jerked up, gasping and staring about the room. With a shaking hand she brushed her cheek, slightly damp. She held it to the little light coming in from the window, and it wasn’t red or sticky. Just sweat. Or tears.

For some moments she pressed her head tight between her hands, shutting her eye and forcing herself to breathe. But it couldn’t get rid of the afterimage seared into her mind. She could still feel the blood as it hit her face, warm and coppery.

“Dammit,” she muttered, swinging her feet off the bed and throwing on her boots.

Sleep wasn’t happening that night. By force of habit she slipped on the metal cuff as she headed out, and then paused. She snapped it open again, exposing her forearm, and watched the little metal bracelet shift, the same one she had worn since she was a baby, identical to her mother’s. She snapped the cuff closed again and rubbed her face, hard.

Maybe she should go check on them. Just a casual, totally normal visit at… she squinted at the bedside clock. 1:42 in the morning. Hm. Or maybe she should be rational and wait until morning. She could even bring coffee and donuts. They’d like that. Still, she wasn’t going to chance having any more dreams. With every intention of slipping out unnoticed, she walked into the rec room of Planet Express to see Fry and Bender shouting at the TV, which seemed to be shouting right back.

“ _And Slammerbot slams right onto The Underslammer, what a move! What’s this? The Underslammer saw it coming?! And he’s back on his feet—“_

_“_ You two are up late,” Leela said, making Fry shriek in surprise.

“Only for your dumb human biology,” Bender said, tossing an empty beer bottle on the floor and missing the trash by a body’s length. Leela watched it roll and tap against the table.

“I thought you’d be back at your place by now,” Leela said, leaning against the wall, crossing her arms and trying not to yawn.

“Eh, too far,” Fry said, tilting his head back all the way to better see her. “Surprised you’re here.” Then he looked around the little room, the bright lights the same whether day or night. “Man, what time is it?”

“Late,” Leela said simply, before her voice was drowned out by the TV crowds screaming, and Bender screaming as he jumped to his feet, swearing like he’d taken up a job as a personal manager with the most insulting, unhelpful encouragement imaginable. Fry had also jumped to his feet on impulse, but was too confused to do more than give a halfhearted yell and squint at the screen.

Leela looked between the television and the screaming idiots, and pursed her lips. A distraction might be nice, but this wasn’t it. Leaving them to it, she headed out towards the side-door, the hall light slowly flickering on around her as she made her way. Almost immediately the early thoughts and images resurfaced, leaving her cold and jittery. Maybe underground robot wrestling would be better than being alone.

“Hey, Leela?” She turned to see Fry had followed her. It was much quieter once the door shuttered behind him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just couldn’t sleep.”

“Uh huh,” Fry said, nodding. “Cause of earlier? That dumb alien thing?”

Leela shrugged, and then looked more closely at Fry, and realized this was an odd hour for him to be watching underground robot fighting, even with Bender’s bad influence. There were shadows under his eyes. “Want to walk with me?”

The night was unremarkably nice, the streets deserted and most of the shop lights dimmed or off. Leela shoved her hands in her pockets against the faint chill, glad to have at least remembered her jacket. Fry kicked at bits of trash and pointed out a scurrying rat on the opposite street. It was hard to see, but it seemed to have an extra eye and faintly glowed. Likely from the sewers.

Like her parents.

Leela shrunk into her jacket collar and shoved her hands deeper, balling them into fists.

“I think I’m going to go see my parents,” she said suddenly.

“Yeah?” Fry said, and then looked up at the dark sky. “What, like now?”

“Maybe.”

Fry made a little sound like a shrug and then fell quiet, oddly so.

The late hours of night affected people differently, and it didn’t always fall to moderation. Some nights, Leela would stay up with the others, drinking and talking and laughing over the dumbest, un-funniest shit. Once they had played truth or dare like teenagers, knocking back shots and smashing beer cans, talking about sexual mishaps and drug-induced disasters. Those nights were good, and they inevitably happened in those late, late hours when they were drunk on exhaustion as much as booze.

Other nights? They might fall like this: quiet and dark, when one could speak of things they couldn’t say in daylight. A time for murmured secrets and soft-shelled vulnerability.

“I saw my parents earlier, actually,” Fry said, frowning and kicking a soda can. It clattered a few feet ahead, and he kicked it again. “Dumb alien drugs.”

Whichever way the night fell, it seemed as arbitrary as the toss of a coin.

“I don’t get exactly what happened to us, but I know what I... it was…” He made a tangled noise in his throat and shrugged, looking and sounding younger than usual. That alone shouldn’t have been so strange, since he was often childish and immature, but this was different. “I don’t know.”

“What happened?”

“I was back home,” he said, his face pinching tight. Home. To him, it meant the year 2000, in the city of Old New York before it became Old. There was something melancholy about him calling that place home. “Everything was the same but instead of staying in the lab when I realized the pizza order was a prank, I left. I went home.” He looked up, seeing the world of his future, and perhaps seeing well beyond it. “Like none of this would ever happen.”

“Oh.” Leela considered that, following his gaze upwards, unseeing.

A flip of the coin, was that it? A glimpse down a path not taken?

“Yeah. I showed up at my house and they were all celebrating New Year's without me. Like they didn’t notice I was gone.” He pulled his chin lower to his chest, frowning. “It was like they’d already forgotten me. I guess... why wouldn’t they. I was just the screw up.”

Leela stared at him as they walked, her own chest feeling tight and strange.

Fry continued in a lower voice, talking as if it might be his only chance to say these words. Almost desperate. “You know, after I got here, I’d sometimes wonder how long it took anyone to notice that I was gone. If they ever did notice. Or, like, if they ever cared.”

“Fry…”

He gave a shaky grin at the sound of her voice, his look painfully, falsely optimistic. “Yeah, that’s dumb. I bet they missed me. I mean, I was their son. Yancy was my brother. They probably did. Eventually. But just… that dumb alien drug made me realize… I think I was alone even before I lost everyone. Now they’re gone, and they’re all dead and I’m not and it’s…” He trailed off, brows pinched. There didn’t seem to be a word for whatever he was feeling.

Leela reached over and hooked her arm around Fry’s shoulders, pulling him close and not losing step.

Fry gave a nervous laugh and tried to pull away, several times almost speaking but the words stuttered and started and lead nowhere. Then he stopped trying, his shoulders tightened as he moved closer, wrapping an arm around her waist and grabbing a fistful of her jacket. She kept them steady, their footsteps keeping time when nothing else seemed to.

“Your family missed you,” Leela said. “You know they did.”

“Yeah.” He leaned in closer, his fingers twisting in her jacket. His voice was almost steady. “Yeah. I know.”

Fry had always been childish, it was one of the most annoying, frustrating parts about him. This was childish too, but Leela didn’t mind. It was a different kind than his usual idiocy. Instead, this was the thoughts and fears of a child that lingered on and on, always in the back on one’s mind, the kind that would seem to vanish with maturity and then snap up and make one feel young and stupid and desperate to be loved.

Leela had a bit of that child in her, too.

Linked tight, they walked on through the half-lit world, a wash of gray metal and concrete painted in patches of light and shadow. In theory, time moved forward, and the stars continued to move overhead, but it felt as much an illusion as any other, like they were the only ones alive and awake on the entire earth.

A taxi zoomed by ahead of them, breaking that thought and leaving an afterglow of headlights, but then it was gone and the silence and stillness returned. Leela thought she wouldn’t mind if time did stop, just for a little while.

They came to the edge of a park, ignoring the hooker bots and avoiding the designated drug spot, lit in ugly, flickering neon like an enticing bug zapper. There was a quiet edge along the grass with cold metal benches that they leaned against, slick from the early morning dew and a thin mist that swept past in tendrils. Once, Leela swiped her palm against her forehead, brushing back her damp bangs and imagined smearing blood. When she pulled away her hand was clean, if sweaty, and she rubbed it against the corner of her jacket.

It was an ugly reminder of her own nightmares, and a reminder that Fry had been part of them. It was his reaction that had helped break what power the drug had on her. The sight of his horrified face when he saw what she had done, how he had staggered and stuttered, knowing he was too late. 

_Don’t do it, Leela! You can’t… you … oh my god… Leela, what did you do?_

“I never did thank you for before,” Leela said, making Fry perk up and make a little noise like a confused dog. “For what you did for me back when you stopped me from... when I almost killed my parents.”

“Oh.” He went quiet for a moment, pondering that. “Is that what you dreamed about? That dumb drug thing?”

She shrugged, rolling her ankle on the ground and not looking up. “Back then, if it hadn’t been for you…”

It damn well terrified her, how easily it could have all gone wrong.

“I don’t think you would have fired, if it helps any,” Fry said, with more confidence in her than she had herself.

It had felt so easy to pull the trigger, so Leela wasn’t too sure about that, but it was comforting regardless. Maybe he had a point. They had been unarmed. Even with how angry she was, would she really have murdered two people in cold blood?

“Maybe,” she muttered. She felt slightly drunk. Or perhaps it was merely exhaustion. She wished she was drunk, it’d at least give her an excuse.

“It’s still weird, you know? Having them,” she said, waving a hand towards nothing. “Having real, actual parents. After all my life thinking I was an orphan, or an alien, and now they’re just there.” She scraped her foot against the concrete, feeling a flash of anger she couldn’t direct. “They’ve always _been there_ and it’s so—“

She stopped, overwhelmed and stupidly emotional and unsure. Night did that, sometimes. It made things go all stupid and reflective.

Before she could give voice to those thoughts, Fry knocked his shoulder into hers, almost shoving her off the slippery benchback. “Hey.” He grinned. “Whatever happened, I’m glad you found your parents.”

She closed her eye and focused on that. It sounded so nice. She had found them, and things had turned out well, hadn’t they? Amazing, actually. Her parents were alive and they loved her, and wanted her.

“Yeah,” she said, her emotions tangling. “Me too.”

She had found her parents. _I’m sorry you lost yours_ , she thought, taking his hand. It was warm and stiff from being held in a fist, and gooey with sweat.

They were sweaty, tired, lonely messes, the both of them, on opposite ends of a shitty pendulum. 

For a time after they were quiet, staring up at the dark sky, a deep black not yet tinged with the gray of pre-dawn. Then, together, they walked back to the Planet Express, stopping in the middle of the empty road at the maintenance hole just outside it, her usual entrance. Fry opened it, pulling it back before reaching out a hand with a smile. With gentlemanly grace he handed her down into the sewers.

Just before she was almost fully under, Leela paused, her hand stilling on the cold metal rung. Looking up, Fry’s orange hair was outlined by the glow of a street lights. He had saved her back then, and that time it had gone right. Tomorrow he’d almost certainly be back to his usual idiot self, but this had been a good night. She’d remember it.

“Thanks, Fry.”

“Good night, Leela.”

He waited, watching her until she was a good way down before closing the heavy circular lid above her. It took a moment for her eyes to settle, but it was actually easier to see underground, the toxic lake casting everything in a green, radioactive glow that made descending the metal ladder easier, and then the woven rope ladder after that. Even though the world wasn’t tied to the rising and falling of the sun, it still had that chilled, calm air of night. Leela knocked against the rotting door jamb, and listened as the muffled voices came closer before the door creaked open a moment.

“Leela!” her mother cried, opening it wide, her father right over her shoulder. “It’s so late. What are you doing here?”

“Are you in trouble?” her father asked worriedly, stepping out and looking up and down the dark, deserted pathway.

“No, I’m fine.” Leela rubbed her arm. This was starting to seem foolish. “I, uh, just… wanted to see you. That’s all.”

“Oh.” Her mom blinked at her. “That’s… sweet of you. But you’re sure you’re okay?”

“Maybe all our clocks are just broken,” her dad said, squinting across the room. “I thought it was after 3am.”

“It is,” Leela said, rocking back on her heels a bit. The idea had been to come and talk with them, but that was seeming too much at the moment. Exhaustion was catching up quick, it was late, and her thoughts and feelings were still jumbled.

“Can I stay here for the night?”

Her parents shared a look, speaking with their eyebrows more than anything. Was it worry? Embarrassment?

“Here? Are you sure? You’d be more comfortable in your own place,” her mom said, gesturing a tentacle vaguely upwards, towards the surface. Where Leela didn’t belong and yet she did now, because of her parents’ sacrifice.

“And it’d be cleaner,” her dad added.

“I don’t care,” she said in a stronger voice. “I’ll sleep on the floor if I have to.”

Luckily she didn’t have to sleep on the floor. Her parents easily conceded—it seemed there was nothing they would say no to—and set about finding extra sheets and pillows, leading her to a couch against the wall. It was new, they said, torn somewhere between pride and shame. It was new to them, anyway. The faux leather was shiny from overuse in parts, claw marks showed the off-white insides, and it reeked of dog, but it was better than the floor.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right,” her mom asked, fussing over her and adjusting the threadbare pillow under her head, shoved up against the armrest and also reeking of dog. Leela was only half sure they didn’t actually have a dog.

“I’m fine. This is… nice.” Leela kept the old blanket tucked under her arm, gripping it in both hands, feeling slightly delirious. It was so far from nice, and a far cry from her own clean, comfortable bedroom, but the anxiety curdling in her gut had turned down to a manageable simmer. She pressed her socked foot against the far armrest, faintly testing, and then let it hang over the too-short couch and breathed in the smell of wet dog and sewage. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“If you need anything, we’ll be just in the next room. You come get us for anything,” her dad said, touching her shoulder. There was a moment’s hesitation as her mom and dad looked at each other before slowly stepping away. This was new to all of them.

“Well… good night,” her mom said, lingering as they both moved towards their own bedroom, keeping her eyes on Leela before leaving with another shared glance.

That pulled at something, and it cried out in Leela’s chest, and surged up her throat and escaped past her lips.

“Wait!” she said, sitting up.

Her parents looked back, but she couldn’t even pull forth the words. She didn’t even know what she wanted to say, or what she wanted, except that she wanted _them._ Her parents who gave her up for a better life, who would sacrifice everything—their own lives—for her happiness. She loved them, and yet the words stuck.

It was too much to think about, or talk about, but her parents understood anyway. Smiling, they returned.

“Good night, Leela,” her mom whispered, kissing her cheek.

“We love you,” her dad said, also bending and kissing her as well.

“I love you, too,” she said softly, like a breath held too long.

Her dad stroked her hair, and it felt oddly familiar though she couldn’t recall anyone ever doing it to her. It was nice. “You’d best get some sleep,” he said. “We’ll talk more in the morning if you like.”

“You can tell me what your favorite breakfast is,” her mom said in a throaty voice, almost in tears and covering her face with one tentacle.

Leela watched them go, the door closed but not shut, and she took comfort at that.

It was quiet and dark, all except for a glow-in-the-dark nose her mother had placed on the little table in the corner, like a nightlight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
